World Liver Day: Malvern resident lives life to the full after successful liver and kidney transplant
After complications with his liver transplant, Vijay Reddy was told his kidneys were also failing and needed to undergo tri-weekly dialysis treatments for four years before a match was found.
TODAY (Monday, 19 April) is World Liver Day – a way to create awareness about liver disease and ensure liver health.
To highlight the importance of liver health, the Queensburgh News spoke to Malvern’s Vijay Reddy, a liver and kidney transplant recipient.
The 54-year-old IT specialist said he received the dire news about his rapidly failing liver from his doctor in 2009.
It was during the check up that he was told it was not regenerating as it was supposed to and he would need a liver transplant.
“I was very weak and you could physically see I was sick. I had ascites, which is a build up of fluid in the abdomen. I honestly spent so much time in hospital and, as it came to the latter stages of illness, the doctors gave up on finding me a match,” said Reddy.
After two years he was told they had found a match.
One flight and eight hours later he was on an operating table in Johannesburg.
“At the time there was a new drug to give you a slower release of immune suppressants and I volunteered to be a trial patient. Unfortunately, it was too toxic for me and I ended up in a coma for three days,” he said.
He only returned to Durban six months later and, during his monthly check-up trips to Johannesburg, he was notified his kidneys were failing.
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He visited a specialist in Durban and was immediately signed up to begin dialysis from 2012 and added to the transplant list for a kidney.
He underwent dialysis three times a week and each session was four hours long.
“When I went to the dialysis centre, there were more than a few people there who had been waiting for five years and upwards for an organ transplant and I gave up hope of finding a donor match. When I received the call to say they had found me a match after four years I was both shocked and filled with joy,” he said.
He received his new kidneys in October in 2016. His daughter was married a month later and he said it was a blessing to have been able to walk her down the aisle.
“I was advised by my doctors not to go as it was so soon after the operation. But how could I miss her wedding? So I walked her down the aisle and did my best to avoid the people at the wedding,” said a grateful Reddy.
Reddy’s advice to readers is to have regular check ups.
“Take care of yourself as you never know what is going on inside your body. The sooner you know, the sooner you can treat it as prevention is better than cure. Be strong and have faith,” he said.
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
